Showing results for "By the Book" in 20th Century

Throughout her childhood, Mia has watched her sisters leave their Tuscan villa and start their own families. Now it's her turn and, having promised them that she will follow her heart, she hopes she will finally be brave enough to fall in love herself. In London, Mia meets Ben, a bookseller. Just as her affection grows, Ben tells her he can never leave London. Loving him would mean saying goodbye to her home in the Tuscan hills forever. Then Mia finds a locket, along with a long-forgotten love story that mirrors her own.

Rose MacDowall is hopeful that her husband Alex can overcome his post-war night terrors and return to full health so she can concentrate on her thriving dress-designing business. When the McCarts, an Irish family arrive in Paisley they are offered a warm welcome, employment and support, but dark secrets threaten to destroy the new lives they're trying to build. As Alex's father's health fails, Fiona steps in to help run the family furniture emporium but Rose is unsettled by Fiona's ambitions and wary of her motives.

The war is over, but its shadows linger. When spirited Lily Brown meets Robert Linford, heir to a prosperous building dynasty, their connection is immediate and electric. But Robert's father, Joseph Linford, sees only danger in his new daughter-to-be. Convinced Lily is a gold-digger and Robert's love a fleeting fancy, Joseph will stop at nothing to protect the family name. What begins as prejudice soon turns into obsession, and Joseph's actions set in motion a lie that will haunt the Linfords for generations.

Amelia Wakefield loves working at Pennington's, Bath's finest department store. So when Pennington's owner sets her a task to set sail on the Titanic and study the department stores of New York, Amelia couldn't be more excited – or determined! Meeting Amelia on board the Titanic, Samuel Murphy can't help wonder what painful history has made the beauty so reserved. Meanwhile, in Bath, Ruby Taylor has always kept her Pennington co-workers at a distance.

Like most women, Elizabeth Miles assumes many roles; unlike most, hers have made her a woman on the run. Living on the edge of society, Elizabeth uses her guile to relieve so-called respectable men of their ill-gotten gains. But brutal and greedy entrepreneur Oscar Thornton is out for blood. He's lost a great deal of money and is not going to forgive a woman for outwitting him. With his thugs hot on her trail, Elizabeth seizes the moment to blend in with a group of women who have an agenda of their own.

Proper Scoundrels Their scandalous pasts have left them wounded and unworthy—and hopelessly perfect together. London, 1925 Sebastian de Leon is adjusting to life after three years spent enthralled by blood magic. The atrocities he committed under its control still weigh heavily on his...

"Devotees of rich historical fiction and contemporary social discourse alike will be enthralled.” —Booklist, starred review From bestselling author Louise Fein comes a new historical novel set in a world of banned books and censorship, in which an encrypted manuscript unleashes a chain of...

By day young Mirren Jarvis works in the twisting department at Ferguslie Thread Mills and by night she works in a local fried-fish shop. She also cares for her sick mother and forgoes the freedom and luxuries her friends enjoy, dreaming of the day her fiancé, Donald, will send for her to come and live with him in America. In the aftermath of the Great War, many of the women in Mirren's life are struggling.

Through years of war and devastation, Tatiana and Alexander suffered the worst the twentieth century had to offer. Miraculously reunited in America, they now have a beautiful son, Anthony, the gift of a love strong enough to survive the most terrible upheavals. Though they are still young, the ordeals they endured have changed them-and after living apart in a world laid waste, they must now find a way to live together in postwar America.

After breaking free from childhood oppression, Angelina hopes to find solace alongside the man of her dreams. But when shadows from the past twist her future, those dreams revert to mere illusions. Desperate and committed, she endures until one tragic night turns her world on its head. Amidst suffragette rallies and societal upheaval, Angelina's resilience is put to the ultimate test as she must choose, once again, the price she is willing to pay to follow her heart.

Oxford Street, London 1915. Sally Harper quietly battles to keep Harpers afloat in the difficult days of the war, whilst husband Ben is working all hours for the War Office. Beth Burrow is fighting concern for her husband, Jack, now at sea with the Merchant Navy, and the fear she may never see him again and be blessed with a child. Driven to exhaustion, Maggie Gibbs, is now working as a nursing assistant on the battlefields in France. With the everyday horrors of the casualties of war to contend with she suffers her own personal tragedy when her fiancé's plane ditches in the sea.

The New York Times best-selling author of 'Til Death Do Us Part transports listeners to 1930s California, where glamour and seduction spawn a multitude of sins. At the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel on the coast of California, rookie reporter Irene Glasson finds herself staring down at a beautiful actress at the bottom of a pool. The dead woman had a red-hot secret about an up-and-coming leading man, a scoop that Irene couldn't resist.

It is 1901 when clockmaker and brilliant tinker Sydney Forrester inherits Blakely House, the eclectic estate of an estranged uncle she's never met. The well-known but mysterious industrialist has left behind a stunning array of peculiar inventions—and a couple of nephews intent on removing this interloper from the estate. Convinced that Sydney has something to do with their uncle's death, the late master's nephews contest the will and work against their cousin at every turn.

Ivete Graham has spent her entire life doing what she is told. But when she learns her fiancė is a womanizer, she can’t bring herself to marry him, no matter how much his wealth and connections would benefit her family. After fleeing to her brother’s Montana ranch, she meets Thomas, her brother’s farm hand, and decides a dalliance of her own is exactly what she needs. Only she can’t ignore the feelings he stirs or the way he holds his honor higher than any man she’s known.

England, 1908: Alice Dalton never intended to rebel against her aristocratic parents. But after her father’s failed attempt to arrange a marriage for her with Edmund Cutler, son of a wealthy stockbroker, she flees the family home humiliated – and determined to make a life for herself as an independent woman, however hard that might be. When a chance opportunity leads to her taking a position as a stained-glass artist’s apprentice, Alice is stunned when she meets the man she’ll be working for: the hateful Edmund Cutler.

In July 1940, Gwen Collingwood drops her husband at the railway station, knowing she may never see him again. Two days later, her humdrum world is torn apart when her sleepy English seaside town is subjected to the first of many heavy bombing attacks. In Ontario, Canada, Jim Armstrong is uncertain whether to volunteer for the army. When he uncovers the secret his fiance has been keeping from him his decision is clear. A few weeks later he is on a ship bound for England.

Will Darling is all right. His business is doing well, and so is his illicit relationship with Kim Secretan - disgraced aristocrat, ex-spy, amateur book-dealer. It's starting to feel like he's got his life under control.

Jack Audley has been a highwayman. A soldier. And he has always been a rogue. What he is not, and never wanted to be, is a peer of the realm, responsible for an ancient heritage and the livelihood of hundreds. But when he is recognized as the long-lost son of the House of Wyndham, his carefree...

Book One: The Romantic Egotist. Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, believes that he has a great destiny, but the precise nature of this destiny eludes him. He attends a preparatory school where he becomes a football quarterback. He grows estranged from his eccentric mother Beatrice Blaine and becomes the protégé of Monsignor Thayer Darcy, a Catholic priest. During his sophomore year at Princeton, he returns to Minneapolis over Christmas break and falls in love with Isabelle Borgé, a wealthy debutante whom he first met as a boy. Amory and Isabelle embark upon a romance.

Bristol, 1939. School leaver Maisie Miles suspects her father, a small-time crook, has an ulterior motive for insisting she gets a job at the W. D. & H. O. Wills tobacco factory but keeps it to herself. She's befriended by effervescent Phyllis Mason and kind-hearted Bridget Milligan who take pity on her and take Maisie under their wing. But beneath their happy-go-lucky exteriors, they all harbour dreams and worries about what the future holds.